2016 Budget not Missing: Who is Fooling Who?

The matters surrounding the 2016 appropriation bill indicated that Nigerian economy challenges goes beyond the crumbling crude oil prices.

Budget which is the estimation of expected income and proposed expenditure for a stated period of time (usually, for a year) is an important document required for the smooth operation of an entity; businesses, governments and households need budget for executing their projects/programmes.

Nigeria’s budget ought to have been debated and passed for implementation as of today but the issue surrounding the whole procedures of national budgeting in Nigeria has been matter of great concern to Nigerians who are hoping to benefit from the budget implementation.

First were the incorrect figures going about on the media giving amount of the proposed budget even when the final tally of such allocations was still being compiled by the Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning.

It wasn’t long after President Muhammadu Buhari presented a budget estimate of N6.08 trillion on December 29^th, 2015 to a joint sitting of the National Assembly that other worrisome issues followed.

The 2016 budget proposal was reported to have gone missing from the premises of the National Assembly. The development was reportedly announced by Senate Leader Ali Ndume as Senators gathered to begin the consideration of the budget on January 12th, 2016.

Earlier rumours had it that the budget had been withdrawn by the Presidency and replaced with another but the Presidency dismissed reports that President Muhammadu Buhari withdrew the 2016 budget.

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu made the clarification on January 12th.

He said the National Assembly should be held responsible for the missing document as it ceases to be a property of the Presidency once it has been presented to the upper chambers.

"Nobody, except the president, can withdraw the budget. As far as we know, he (the president) has not done that. The copies in their hundreds have been delivered to both chambers of the National Assembly.

"By tradition, once the budget is submitted, it ceases to be our property.  Enquiries as to where it is should be directed to the appropriate quarters", Shehu said.

Ndume said after the initial claim of missing budget that ''The budget cannot be missing. A copy can be laid, it is a symbolic copy, the budget will be in custody of both Chambers. It cannot be stolen, it cannot be missing.

Once the budget is laid in the National Assembly, it has become the property of National Assembly.”

When asked the reason for Senate President‘s visits to the Villa, immediately news of the missing budget broke, Ndume said ‘‘Saraki’s visit to Villa is for Senate to know the President's priority.

We want to see how we can fast track the passage of the budget before the end of February. What is before the Senate is proposal, once the president signs it, it cannot be amended, we can turn the budget upside down, it cannot be missing.”

But the Senate President later after denial confirmed the development in a response to a point of order by Senator Eyinanya Abaribe on the alleged missing budget during plenary session on Wednesday.

Following the confirmation, the Senate has reportedly set up a committee to look into and search for the missing 2016 National Budget yesterday 13^th January for report to be submitted today.

What we have now is that the Senate President Bukola Saraki today Thursday 14^th January accused the Presidency of submitting two versions of the 2016 Appropriation Bill to the National Assembly.

“Today, the Senate received the report of the ad hoc committee setup to investigate the claims of the ‪missing budget 2016.

“The report of the committee revealed that the Senate received two versions of the 2016 Appropriation Bill – one from President Muhammadu Buhari at the December 22nd, 2015 Joint Session of the National Assembly, and another from the Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Ita Enang,” Saraki said.

The Senate President further said the Senate will only accept the version of the appropriation bill that was presented by the President.

The question is, who is fooling who and why?